Someone who was completely wrong once said that there are no second acts in American lives. To the contrary, I think it is the defining characteristic of our nation. This is the land of opportunity, not merely economic but personal. You want to be urban and urbane? All you gotta do is show up.

Heck, even if only a few of your dreams come true, it's got to be better than none of them, right?

You have a masters. Go teach! Also, that way, your lifetime of knowledge won't be wasted, but can be handed off to the next generation.

Nice one, Berkeley.

Just asking.

To this day, I 100% support women's rights to choose, make no mistake. But I absolutely, thoroughly regret having assisted in the abortion of my child. Hell, I didn't just have feelings, I had an emotional breakdown, years later. One night I found myself crying uncontrollably, looked inside and identified the source of the misery: That was my child and I had killed it! Awful. Of course, I would've been a awful dad, having been 23 at the time and I was already broken up with the (non) mom, so all-in-all a bad scene, but none the less I was, and still am, deeply sorry.

To claim all the emotions for women in this scenario is, frankly, sexist. Men do have feeling and strong ones at that.

Our species is headed for a big die off, no doubt about it. We're going to push the planet to the brink and the system will collapse. And so what? The fact of the matter is, we are just smart(er) monkeys, animals like all the rest and we're subject to the same laws of nature as all other species. When food is abundant, we multiply and when food is scarce, we die off. This is the natural order of things. Like the last Easter Islander cutting down the last tree or the Mayan civilization ballooning to huge numbers before disappearing because of drought, (Or soil degradation. Or disease. Or whatever. The point is, they died.) our species is hardwired to use up our very last resource and then die off.

The only difference being that we're doing it on a global scale never seen before.

I think, just conjecture here, that some few of our species will survive the coming environmental catastrophe and stick around for a long, long time, probably with greatly reduced numbers. The environment, with most of us gone, will recoup quickly, the seas will refill with fish and and planet will cool again, eventually.

The irony here is that the very same intelligence that has wrought this destruction to the environment also makes us aware, and thus afraid, of our fate. Don't be! You're going to die, as is your daughter, sooner or later, as is everybody. No point in worrying about it.

I went through the same freakout as you did, knowing our fate was near, but then I realized that it is inevitable, and thus resigned myself to it. What else can I do? Curl up in a fetal ball and suck my thumb? Bah. Get on with your life. After all, you only get one.

Obama is clearly the better candidate.

1. He picks up independents and Republicans and young people, the last by huge margins.

2. If he is the candidate, the people who currently support Hillary are the diehard Democrats - they will swing behind Obama, with very few staying home and allowing McCranky to take the presidency.

3. The same is not true if Hillary gets the nomination. Those same young people, uninspired by Hillary, will stay at home with their bongs and won't bother to show up. The Republicans and Independents will RUN away in droves from her candidacy and into the Republican camp.

4. Record numbers of African Americans will show up at the polls registering to vote, as we have seen in South Carolina, etc.

5. McCain is despised by a lot of Republicans, but the only person more despised is Hillary. I'll bet that an Obama candidacy would inspire many republicans to stay home, where as Hillary will cause them to head to the polls, if only to stop her.

So perhaps Shuster's use of the term "pimped out" struck a generational nerve. But let's look at what's going on here:

Chelsea Clinton had a meal with undecided superdelegate Jason Rae with the obvious intent of wooing him, (platonically seducing him, perhaps?) into voting for her mom. Chelsea is sent specifically to do this thing, not because she has a preexisting relationship of any sort with Mr. Rae, but because she is in Mr. Rae's age range and thus it is assumed that the special attention will excite Mr. Rae and cause him to cast his ballot for Mrs. Clinton.

Now, strictly using the younger generation's definition of "pimping out," this is EXACTLY what went on. I think what's really irritating the Clintons is that they got called on their behavior and self-righteously overreacted in order to distract everyone from the fact that Chelsea was sent by her mom to (nonsexually) seduce a young man into voting for her. I mean, what the hell else would you call it? By all the standards of my generation's definition, Chelsea got pimped out.

The fact of the matter is, Hillary freaks out every time her daughter is in the spotlight, but then continues to put her there. Sorry, but the Clintons don't get don't get to use Chelsea to campaign for public office and also complain that the media is obliged to keep her private life private. Either she's is a public figure, or she isn't. They don't get to have their cake and eat it too.